Housing after Harvey

Flooding in Houston after Harvey. (Photo: Daniel J. Martinez)

Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston late last month, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes badly damaged and lives uprooted. Still, on the first, many landlords demanded rent.

Texas rental law is skewed in favor of landlords. If a property is “partially unusable,” a tenant may only get a rent reduction through a lengthy court process, not so feasible for working class disaster victims who need relief now.

In the weeks following Harvey the media was awash with stories of tenants unable to get into their homes, or returning to heavily damaged and mold-ridden homes, who were still compelled to pay September rent. Landlords who decided the damage was too extensive to demand rent in good conscience delivered eviction notices instead.

Despite the fact that finding new housing in the wake of a disaster is a harrowing task, some tenants received five-day eviction notices because their housing was uninhabitable — not, however, without being charged rent for the month, though landlords generously waived the late fee.

“You aren’t the only ones in this situation,” one landlord told an evacuated tenant expected to pay rent and a late fee she couldn’t afford. In the wake of a disaster, beleaguered tenants are expected to sympathize with the landlord asking for their last dollar. The commodification of housing creates a parasitic landlord class whose livelihood depends on extracting wealth from poorer people.

Meanwhile, half a dozen tenants in Houston’s public housing were reportedly asked to pay rent by mistake. Now the HHA is trying to figure out how many of its 180 displaced tenants — many already struggling with the costs of evacuation and replacing ruined items — are owed refunds.

Clearly, only a society that treats housing as a public good is capable of providing real relief — not compounding problems — for victims in the wake of a disaster.